


kill v. maim

by theodosius



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Chrollo Lucilfer Is A Bad Person, Dubious Consent, Extremely Dubious Consent, Kurapika Makes Bad Decisions, M/M, This is not a romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 23:02:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29973627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theodosius/pseuds/theodosius
Summary: Kurapika has violated so many lines in his pursuit of the Spiders that he barely notices them anymore. He recognizes this one, bold and dark. He watches it shatter as Chrollo leans forward, curls white fingers possessively around Kurapika’s hips, and licks a hungry stripe up his skin./Kurapika goes undercover to kill Chrollo. It goes differently than he'd planned.
Relationships: Kurapika/Kuroro Lucifer | Chrollo Lucifer
Comments: 10
Kudos: 74





	kill v. maim

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this in my Google Drive for the past two years nearly untouched and then something snapped last week and I wrote the rest of it. 
> 
> Title from the song by Grimes.

Spider venom comes in many forms. It can often take a long while to discover the full effects of the bite. Naturalists have pondered this for years: there are spiders whose bite can cause the place bitten to rot and to die, sometimes more than a year after it was bitten. As to why spiders do this, the answer is simple. It’s because spiders think this is funny, and they don’t want you ever to forget them.

― Neil Gaiman, Anansi Boys

“You know,” Hisoka says over a crackling phone line, after a month has passed and Kurapika has gotten precisely nowhere, “He is partial to blonds.”

As usual, the clown’s lilting voice makes Kurapika’s skin crawl. He almost ends the call on principle, but grits out, “I don’t find that amusing,” first. 

“Don’t believe me?” Hisoka asks, chuckling in the familiar, disturbing way that makes Kurapika wish he was nearer so he could stab him. “Watch him. You’ll see.”

He hangs up before Kurapika can. 

Kurapika does watch Chrollo, of course, because Kurapika _has been_ watching Chrollo. It’s all he’s been doing. For days, for weeks. Ever since Chrollo had gotten his Nen back and Kurapika had started keeping track of the days until he died.

He had assumed that Hisoka had made up what he’d said, either to play some sort of mind game with him or just because he was bored. Hisoka lies about everything, after all. It’s one of the first things he’d learned about the magician, in the weeks that they’d been bizarre allies against the Phantom Troupe.

But against all odds it transpires, under observation, that he may have been telling the truth this time.

One of the seedier parts of Yorknew, near the docks, is all poorly knocked together bars and warehouses, giving way to cheap motels on the edge of the tourist district. 

There are a number of clubs that pop up nightly throughout this area, obvious fire hazards with too much alcohol and loud music and wheeling colored lights and far too many people crammed into them, usually with no liquor license and always with an obscenely expensive cover charge.

It’s this district that Chrollo drives to once a week, sometimes twice, in some stolen town car or another. Usually with two or three of the Spiders, often more, always at least one. Kurapika assumes it’s for security, under the circumstances. Yorknew is full of wanted men, but none come close to the Phantom Troupe.

The Spiders attend far more illegal nightclubs than Kurapika had expected. He would have assumed they’d be much too busy killing people, or stealing things, or whatever it was that the group of grim looking teenagers did.

For all that, Kurapika wonders disdainfully why they would take the risk of going out at all, when they seem to have no goal in mind besides getting awfully drunk and causing minor nuisances.

And yet, it’s the sixth of the month and here they are, like clockwork, spilling out of an over-packed van and towards the entrance of the latest bootleg club—something with graffiti splashed over the entrance and all its walls, and black lights inside revealing all manner of sins.

Chrollo isn’t always among the Spiders, but he is this time, and Kurapika straightens up involuntarily against the shadowy alley wall, watching as the man he came here to kill walks towards the entrance. He leans in close to murmur something to the bouncer, whose eyes go wide before he starts nodding vigorously, indicating something with his hand. The rest of the Troupe head right in without paying, and Chrollo follows after.

Kurapika stays in the alley for some time after that.

He’s been watching Chrollo for months, but after that phone conversation he’d begun watching in a different way, almost against his will, and he’d seen him gravitate towards a particular type, when he paid attention to anyone outside his Spiders at all. 

Just like Hisoka said, it was blonds. 

It could barely be called interest—glancing up from a conversation to look at someone pushing past him to the dancefloor for an extra second, watching their hair get drenched all the colors of the wheeling lights, or pausing while ordering a drink to exchange a handful of words with some fair-haired boy before disappearing with him—but it was interest all the same. 

In that interest, Kurapika had seen an opening. It makes his skin crawl to think of, but if his plan works it will be worth a few minutes of uncomfortable playacting.

He just needs to get Chrollo alone, away from the followers who would die for him. 

As expected, there are few options for “alone” in a nightclub so crowded that Kurapika is jostled from every side the second he pays the entrance charge and gets his hand stamped messily with something that looks like a kraken. 

Hands grab hold of his hips from behind, a drunken voice slurs something in his ear, an invitation which he ignores to jerk free and keep moving impatiently throughout the crowd. He doesn’t even glance behind him to see how his would-be paramour is taking the rejection. It’s not like there aren’t other readily-available options all around them.

To aid in his mission Kurapika is wearing cheap leather pants, a cropped white shirt so thin it might as well be see-through, and a wig over his natural hair, long but nearly precisely the same shade. The less he looks like himself, the better: this is a stupid risk, and odds are good it will end badly. Odds are good he’ll be recognized, and he’ll die here.

But when he leans up onto the bar next to the enemy he’s been hunting almost half his life, and loudly asks the bartender for a vodka soda, no one yells or draws a weapon. There’s no hum of Nen in the air, or at least, no more so than a group as powerful as the Troupe can help. Nothing at all happens to indicate he’s been noticed.

Well, not _nothing._

He feels eyes on the bare skin of his lower back, on the leather hugging his ass, and looks over one shoulder, tossing his hair to the side. “Like what you see?” he asks, loud over the thudding bassline. He bites down gently on his bottom lip. He’d even applied gloss for the occasion.

He’d practiced this part for hours. Behaving like this doesn’t come very naturally in any context, and particularly not this one. It had taken a long time for him to be able to spit the words out without tripping on them.

He still almost falters, looking into the eyes of the man who took everything from him. 

“Do you want to come to the restroom with me?” Chrollo Lucilfer asks, gaze dark and steady, and Kurapika almost can’t believe that after all this—after _everything_ —it could be so easy.

He nods, because he finds that his throat has closed up (from fear, from hatred, from so many things rolled up together), and pushes back up off the bar. He’s practically vibrating from nervous anticipation. He turns and starts towards the bathroom without waiting to see if he’s being followed.

He is, of course. He can feel Chrollo’s presence behind him as surely as if he’s been set as polar north on Kurapika’s internal compass. 

There’s a man washing his hands and another leaning somewhat drunkenly at the urinal when they get into the bathroom, which is grimy and lit only by a precariously-installed fluorescent light screwed into the ceiling. Kurapika doesn’t care, ignores the knowing glances from the two men and makes his way right into the nearest open stall. He has this much planned out.

There’s a second where he’s alone in the stall before Chrollo follows, and he takes a deep, shuddering breath where he won’t be seen. His hands are shaking. He can do this. He has to do this.

Chrollo latches the door behind himself and turns, eyes on Kurapika like he’s waiting for something. There’s barely any space between them in the narrow confines of the stall, and Kurapika realizes somewhat belatedly that he actually has no idea what Chrollo does with the boys he picks up at places like this. Chrollo’s not giving him any cues, either. Does he expect Kurapika to blow him? Does he think they’re going to fuck?

“May I kiss you?” Chrollo asks, and Kurapika has to fight to stay steady against the nausea and fury that roils up in his stomach at the thought. Anything Chrollo could have said, or asked for, and that might be the worst.

He shakes his head, more of a jerk to the side than anything. “Not that,” is all he manages to say.

His knife is in his boot. The club didn’t have metal detectors or searches on the way in, so it had been easy to hide. He’s got Chrollo alone, against all odds. All he needs now is an opening—a single moment where Chrollo is distracted enough that Kurapika can get the knife out and in: between his ribs, drawn across his throat, buried in his gut. He hasn’t decided yet how exactly he wants to do it.

He’s not worried about getting out of the club afterwards. He couldn’t care less. If he’s arrested, if the Phantom Troupe burst in to find him and tear him apart, it doesn’t matter. All that will matter is that he’s _won_. His skin is tingling with how close to victory he is. 

Chrollo inclines his head in acquiescence to Kurapika’s rejection, and then, without another word, he sinks down to his knees.

Kurapika stares down at him in open, unguarded shock. Only for a second; he’s able to school his expression back into impassivity before Chrollo looks up at him from beneath tousled dark hair. 

Kurapika couldn’t have imagined a more perfect moment: Chrollo kneeling in front of him, defenses down. It’s exactly the opening he was waiting for. 

It’s the perfect moment, except that staring down at Chrollo on the filthy floor of the club bathroom, Kurapika is suddenly possessed with the wild, impulsive need to go through with it. To make him _do_ what he’s offering up so clearly. He wants it more than anything, now that he’s thought of it; a different type of revenge he’d never conceived of in months of research and plotting. He wants to _humiliate_ Chrollo before he kills him.

He wants Chrollo to die like this, on his knees.

His hands don’t feel like his own when he undoes the button and zip of the leather pants he’s wearing and peels them down off his hips, fingers shaking, to reveal sweat-tacky skin. He half-expects Chrollo to take control, to reach out, to be rough about it, even, but he doesn’t. He just waits patiently, watching as Kurapika pulls his cock out of his underwear, already half-hard and flushed. 

He feels a hot wash of shame at his visible arousal, but anger and revenge have crossed all kinds of confusing wires in his head before and he’s sure they will again. He can’t dwell on it now.

Kurapika has violated so many lines in his pursuit of the Spiders that he barely notices them anymore. He recognizes this one, bold and dark. He watches it shatter as Chrollo leans forward, curls white fingers possessively around Kurapika’s hips, and licks a hungry line up his cock. 

Kurapika gasps audibly before he can catch himself, presses a fist to his mouth to prevent any other traitorous sounds from slipping out. 

He hadn’t thought, with everything, with who they both are, that it would feel _good._

It was stupid, a child’s delineation. He had thought he could feel nothing, could stay dispassionate, because he hates Chrollo down to his bones and has for as long as he can remember. But this is much simpler than that: it’s a hot mouth on sensitive skin, and Chrollo’s tongue is doing something torturous, and Kurapika’s breathing goes ragged almost immediately. Even he can hear it. 

“You haven’t done this before, like this.”

Kurapika had squeezed his eyes shut without realizing. They fly open now as he looks down at Chrollo, face burning, feeling humiliation supercede even his anger. “I—”

“It wasn’t a question,” Chrollo says, as calm and even as if Kurapika’s cock hadn’t just been in his _mouth_ , expression so impassive it might suggest they were having this conversation fully dressed over lunch. “You’re very eager for it, aren’t you?”

As those words sink in, Kurapika has the impulse, vivid and inexorable, to retrieve the knife from his boot and slam it through Chrollo’s eye. 

“Fuckyou,” he bites out, forgetting his persona entirely. He goes to jerk forward but Chrollo presses him back against the door and puts his mouth to work again, taking all of Kurapika down in one fluid motion. The sight of it is so visceral Kurapika has to swallow another gasp. He bites down on his lip so hard he can taste metal in his mouth. 

He balls his hands into white fists, presses them back against the door by his sides. His body tremors all over in surprise when he feels Chrollo uncurling one of his hands, shocked by this innocuous touch under the present circumstances. Everything is too raw, and for a long moment he can’t understand what’s happening. Then there’s something soft under his fingers, and he realizes. 

Chrollo has pulled Kurapika’s hand up to rest on the back of his head. Giving him permission, maybe, or issuing a directive. 

Kurapika takes a fistful of the dark hair in his hand. It’s less greasy than he would have thought. He’s not sure if the thrill that runs through him is sick horror or triumph, or maybe both. Chrollo looks up at him from around his cock, luminous dark eyes appraising and cheeks hollowed, and Kurapika shudders and then shudders again, toes curling in his boots. He tightens his grip without meaning to. Then he does it again, pulling, because it’s viciously satisfying.

He wants to rip Chrollo’s hair out. He wants to use the hold he now has to jerk his head back and cut his throat. 

And, terribly, more than any of it, he wants to keep watching Chrollo’s face as Kurapika uses him like this. He wants to see what it looks like when he comes in his mouth. 

It occurs to him, distantly, that he’s lost control of the situation somewhere in the minutes between hitting on Chrollo at the bar and here. He doesn’t know when he got too far in, but now he can’t see the way back. 

Chrollo pulls off and laves his tongue over the head, and Kurapika stifles a moan. 

He fumbles with his free hand to grip the stall door over his head, hearing it creak traitorously against his weight. He’s barely standing under his own volition anymore. _I’ll kill him once this is over,_ he thinks, half-delirious. It feels so good, has anything ever felt this good? The world has narrowed to the hot suction and the uneven sound of his own breathing.

“That’s it,” he thinks he hears Chrollo say, when he’s gasping up at the wobbly fluorescent ceiling with one hand buried in Chrollo’s hair and the other desperately clinging to the stall door. Kurapika has the presence of mind to drag his gaze back down. Their eyes meet. He’s close, he’s so close, and somehow Chrollo knows it.

Kurapika tugs roughly on his hair, expecting resistance, but Chrollo pulls back as if he was expecting it and just says again, breathes it, “That’s it,” with his hands still on Kurapika’s hips and his eyes fixed on his face. Kurapika lets go of the door and gets a clumsy hand on himself, jerking his wet cock fast and rough until a furious, wordless sound is ripped free of his throat and he comes all over Chrollo’s face and neck so hard he almost blacks out for a minute.

_I have to do it now_ , he thinks, but his thoughts are drifting and he can barely stand, chest heaving with exertion as he leans back against the side of the stall. His hip is digging into the toilet paper holder. He should do his pants back up, but he thinks he might pass out if he tries.

Still kneeling, Chrollo wipes a sleeve over his face, dragging come over his mouth and eyelashes and the high line of his cheekbones. It’s absolutely mesmerizing. _I did that_ , Kurapika thinks, dizzily. It takes a few swipes but after a moment he seems to deem himself presentable, and gets carefully back to his feet. 

“Beautiful,” he says, voice hoarse— _from me,_ _I did that too_ —and eyes dark. He smooths his hair down and plucks something from his pocket to press into Kurapika’s slack, come-covered palm, and then—before Kurapika can recover himself enough to remember the second part of his plan, before he can even tuck himself back into his underwear—swings the stall door open wide and ambles out.

Kurapika and the two men having a conversation at the urinal exchange matching shocked looks, and then their looks change to something else, and Kurapika regains the use of his rubbery arms long enough to reach out, slam the stall door back shut, and fumble the latch closed. He’s flushed all over with humiliation at being seen in such a state. Chrollo had done that on _purpose._ There’s no question what he must look like. 

He’s not sure why that thought makes arousal flush uncomfortably over his chest again. 

Alone in the stall, he cleans himself up with toilet paper wadded from the rattly dispenser. It takes a lot of wiggling and yanking to get the cheap pants back up over his sweat-and-come-sticky thighs, but finally he manages it.

Then he really thinks about what just happened. The truth he’s been doing his best not to acknowledge sinks its claws in, vicious and painful, and his stomach turns over violently. It no longer seems like revenge, like justice, at all. He thinks he might die from the disgust and horror of it. 

What had he just done? And how, _how_ could he have done it?

He drops down on his knees over the graffiti-scratched toilet, heedless of the wig he’s still wearing, to vomit up everything he’s eaten in the past two days.

*

He needs to get Chrollo alone again. 

That’s the singular thought that keeps Kurapika going for the next week, in between bouts of nausea so strong he spends hours at a time curled up on the bathroom tile of his hotel room, retching up what little food he can keep down.

It had _worked_. Or, it had almost worked. It would have worked, if he hadn’t—

He can’t think too hard about it. He thinks he’ll fall apart if he does. Even the memories that keep sliding into his mind—Chrollo Lucilfer on his knees with come on his face, Chrollo Lucilfer’s voice murmuring “That’s it,” so close and so real that Kurapika startles himself awake in a cold sweat, certain he’s in the room with him—are so bad he feels winded by them each time. He doesn’t know how his actions had seemed so righteous in the moment, when in hindsight it’s the worst thing he’s ever done. 

So the only thing he has left is the certainty that his plan had started out as a good one: he had, inarguably, worked out an effective way to get Chrollo by himself. 

All he has to do is do it again.

*

At the end of the week Kurapika can more or less keep food down, and he calls downstairs inquiring about the availability of rooms on the nineteenth floor, two levels above his current long-term stay on the seventeenth. The front desk asks no questions, only provides him with a new room number. Only for a night, Kurapika specifies. The front desk tells him they’ll add it to his tab.

He texts the number that had been on the card tucked into his hand at the club, giving the hotel address and the new room number. His fingers shake so badly when sending the message that he almost drops his phone. Once he sends it he sinks down onto the edge of the bed, staring out the window. He’s downtown, and the skyline could be anywhere in Yorknew.

_You are in control of this situation_ , he tells himself sternly. He feels phantom hands on his hips and shudders, pressing a hand to his abdomen and trying to will himself not to vomit again. He’s really going to need to eat if he wants to have anything like his normal power upon reserve, should things go wrong. 

His phone buzzes on the comforter, and he almost jumps out of his skin. He leans to pick it up, palms sweaty.

_22:00_ is the only content of the message, from an unknown sender.

Seven hours away. Kurapika swallows bile, and gets up to go get ready.

*

The only things Kurapika brings up to the staged hotel room are a toothbrush and toothpaste—he’s not one hundred percent sure about his commitment not to throw up anymore before his rendezvous time—and a dagger, which he tucks under the pillow on the neatly made bed. 

He lies down on his back and practices reaching for it, over and over again, memorizing the placement and the distance, until he can slip his hand under the pillowcase and back as fast as blinking. He doesn’t like the position that puts him in, but he can’t think of another way to get Chrollo’s guard down, or another place to hide such an obvious weapon.

He gets up again, feeling jittery. He paces for a while, then on impulse closes the drapes and dims the lights, so that it’s as dark as possible. It makes it easier to face what he’s going to have to do.

Kurapika gets dressed in a cheap button-down shirt, left undone most of the way, and uncomfortably tight ripped jeans. He makes sure the long wig is carefully pinned in place over his real hair.

His traditional clothing, and his Hunter license, and all the rest of his things are down two floors below. He wasn’t going to bring those into this space. They don’t belong here.

It would be more helpful if he were able to put down sheets or towels to help him with cleanup later, he considers, scuffing a toe over the carpet, but there’s no way that would go unnoticed. Anyway, just like at the club, he doesn’t care what happens after Chrollo’s throat is cut. That’s a problem for later. It’s a shady enough hotel he wouldn’t be surprised if they had a built-in body disposal package. 

Once he’s done with all that, there’s nothing to do but wait.

Chrollo is nothing if not prompt, evidently; at precisely 22:02 the phone in the room rings, asking permission to send up a visitor. Kurapika gives it, glad Chrollo isn’t on the other end to hear the crack in his voice.

He waits on the edge of the bed in the darkened room, heart in his mouth. It takes less than five minutes for the elevator to get up to this floor from the lobby, and then for Chrollo to make his way down the hallway to the right room number.

At 22:06 there's a polite rap on the door, and Kurapika inhales sharply, then forces himself to expel the breath slowly, regaining his balance. He can do this. He has to do this. It’s the only way to balance the scales. The only way he can make the horrific thing he’s already done in any way acceptable. He has to make it worth something. 

When he swings the door open inwards, he has to suppress the familiar rush of hatred and rage that burns through him at the sight of Chrollo, all in black with his fur-lined coat on. He’d tried to prepare himself this time, but there’s no preparing for it. Even with his contacts in, he feels momentarily sure they can’t possibly contain the emotional blaze of crimson he knows is hidden beneath.

But Chrollo doesn’t take a second look at his eyes, just lets his gaze trail down Kurapika’s frame and then back up. “I hope you know that I wouldn’t come out here for just anyone,” he says by way of hello.

Kurapika tries not to be a tiny bit smug. “And yet here you are,” he says, raising his eyebrows.

Chrollo’s black eyes linger on his mouth, as if _he’s_ the one who had used it. “You made an impression.”

Despite himself, Kurapika feels his cheeks prickle hot. “I guess you did too,” he says, trying for nonchalant, and pushes the door open so Chrollo can come in. He goes to sit on the edge of the bed, leaning back on his hands and tilting his head to one side in an affected way that makes the soft synthetic hair shift, baring part of his neck. Chrollo stays by the door. 

“So,” Kurapika says without further preamble, touching his tongue to his top lip even though his mouth is bone-dry. “Are you going to fuck me, or not?”

“That depends,” Chrollo says. “Are you expecting me to pay you?”

Kurapika doesn’t have to feign his offense. Even though it’s far from the worst thing Chrollo could suspect him of—even though he can see why he would draw that conclusion—he can’t stand it. Maybe it hits too close to home. He bares his teeth. “ _Fuck_ you,” he snaps. “I’m not a—”

“Not a whore?” Chrollo asks, raising one eyebrow. Kurapika flinches from the word. Chrollo pushes the door closed, dropping them both into shadow. “That wasn’t my question,” he says. “I think we both know what you are, regardless of whether I give you money. I’ve never seen anyone so desperate for it.”

Kurapika isn’t thinking when he rockets to his feet, closes the distance between them and lashes out to strike Chrollo. He doesn’t even realize he’s done it until there are warm fingers tight around his wrist—the other man had caught the movement before it could connect. 

“I don’t care, for the record,” Chrollo says, without acknowledging the attack in any way. “I was only wondering.”

Kurapika tries to wrench his arm back. “If you’re just here to _insult_ me—”

“In answer to _your_ question,” Chrollo interrupts, low and soft with his hand still wrapped around Kurapika’s wrist, “Yes, I think I will _fuck_ you. Since you’re offering.”

Kurapika works hard to banish his anger and refocus. Things are still going according to plan, he realizes a beat late. He can’t fly off the handle before then, especially not for something so stupid. He’s just been knocked off balance by the deviation, and he needs to backtrack. 

“Okay then,” he says. “What are we waiting for?” He attempts to make it sound sultry instead of stiff as he turns, tugging to lead Chrollo over to the bed.

Every self-preservational instinct he has is _screaming_ at him now: not to put himself in such a vulnerable position, not to turn his back, not to do any of it. It takes a lot of focus to tune the voices out; after all, they’re right.

Chrollo pulls him backwards without warning, making him bump back against his chest, startled. His own heartbeat is going like a hummingbird, and he can only pray Chrollo can’t hear it. “Come on,” he says, trying to sound flirtatious and attempting desperately to steer them both forwards again, towards the bed and the hidden knife, but Chrollo doesn’t budge an inch. 

Instead he uses his free hand to unbutton the tight jeans Kurapika is wearing, dragging his fingernails over Kurapika’s abdomen to make the muscles jump. Kurapika feels a wave of renewed nausea, swallows it back. This isn’t what he’d planned at all. 

He can’t think of any good reason to stop Chrollo from doing exactly what he’d ostensibly called him here for, but his skin is crawling off his body everywhere Chrollo touches him. It’s making his breathing come choppy and harsh, keeping him on the knife edge of panic. He’s frozen between fight and flight.

Then Chrollo’s hand pushes beneath the band of Kurapika’s underwear and he takes hold of his cock with a satisfied sigh, stroking idly. The panic recedes, turns into something different, liquid and more urgent. Unwanted desire creeps up over him instead, escaping from the dark, secret place inside him where he’d tried so hard to lock it. 

Kurapika feels horribly like he’s outside his own body, watching himself arch back into the touch.

He must go noticeably limp in Chrollo’s arms, because he hears the low rumble of his laughter against his back. Kurapika wants to be indignant but can’t; he’s too busy trying to keep the traitorous sounds being pulled from his throat trapped tight inside his mouth. He can’t help it; he’s the only one who ever touches himself like this, these days, and seldom even that. It’s not something he’s ever had time for. He has no resistance built up at all.

“This room doesn’t smell like you,” Chrollo murmurs in his ear. Kurapika startles horribly at the sound of his voice, and the reminder of whose hands are on him. 

He lets go of Kurapika’s wrist, slips a hand up underneath his shirt to circle his nipple, all the while still jacking him off, slow and methodical and so good his thoughts keep scattering. “Did you go out and book a hotel room just for me to fuck you in?”

Kurapika’s cock is leaking, Chrollo’s hand on him growing slicker and slicker. He’s horribly aware of it. _Just get him to the bed_ , he remembers, a second before his mouth falls open against his will and he squirms against Chrollo’s hands, chasing a particularly delicious stroke.

Still, he manages to drag them both forward a step, and Chrollo lets go of him this time, removing his arm from his chest and his hand from his damp underwear. Kurapika climbs onto the bed on all fours and rolls over onto his back, trembling, with his jeans and underwear still stretched around his thighs. He can only imagine what he must look like, and the humiliation burns in his chest. His thoughts go to the pillow concealing the knife, but he can’t grab it just yet. He has to get Chrollo down here as well. 

_Just a little more. Almost there._

“Maybe I did,” he says in answer to Chrollo’s question, defiant. He lifts his hips and drags the jeans and underwear the rest of the way down, kicking them off his legs. He pushes himself up onto his elbows, watching the other man with an expression he hopes is a challenge. “So what are you waiting for?”

“Open them,” Chrollo says. He takes a step closer, standing at the foot of the bed. He’d gotten rid of his coat at some point. Kurapika hadn’t even noticed. “Your legs,” Chrollo clarifies, when Kurapika only stares at him.

Kurapika feels his face burn. He hadn’t practiced this. He hadn’t _expected_ this. Chrollo’s eyes on him are like a tangible weight. He lets his legs fall open just slightly, fighting the self-conscious urge to clamp them back together. 

If this is what it takes, he’ll do it. He doesn’t have a choice. 

“Beautiful,” Chrollo says. He fishes in the pocket of his coat and tosses something to Kurapika. It lands on his stomach and bounces lightly. Kurapika picks it up and feels panic return, rising in his throat, as he realizes what it is. 

“Don’t you want to come here and help me?” Kurapika asks, closing his fingers around the packet of lube and making his voice as syrupy as he can. His heart is pounding. He can’t see a way out of this. Why won’t Chrollo just get on the _bed_?

“I came all the way here in the middle of the night, and I’m tired,” Chrollo says, expression immovable. “The least you could do is your part, don’t you think?”

Kurapika swallows. He waits a moment, but it’s very clear Chrollo is serious. Finally he retrieves and tears open the packet, clumsy, getting most of it on the hotel bedspread instead of his fingers. 

Then he finds he’s paralyzed, unable to go any further. He’s already half-naked; this is a bridge too far. It’s unthinkable to be doing this in front of Chrollo, of all people on earth. It’s _unthinkable_ to debase himself like this in front of his enemy.

But he’s so close, so close to defeating him for good. After so long. A decade of hunting, and it could all be over tonight. 

_You can do this,_ he tells himself. He squeezes his eyes shut. He’s done this much before, after all. He just has to pretend he’s by himself.

So Kurapika lies back on the pillows with his eyes still closed, probing around his entrance and trying not to think about Chrollo’s eyes on him. It’s no good; he can feel _everywhere_ he’s looking, like heat uncomfortable on already-burned skin. 

He sighs as he sinks the first finger in, working through the faint burn with a hiss. He hasn’t done this in a while. He’s impatient, and afraid, and embarrassed, and yet those wires are getting crossed again, the thought of finally holding the dagger in his hand and finally, _finally_ driving it home making him feel eager and hot, and after a few minutes and two more fingers he truly has almost forgotten he has an audience.

When it starts to feel too good, and his thoughts start drifting, he scissors his fingers ungently inside himself, using the jolt of pain to remind him where he is. “Well?” he asks aloud, eyes still closed, palming his cock demonstratively. 

The bed shifts, and then his hands are pulled out of his ass and away from his cock and dragged up to be pinned against the sheets over his head, all at once. Kurapika blinks his eyes open on a gasp, vision bleary, and sees Chrollo kneeling over him.

That’s all he registers, all he has time for, and then Chrollo pushes forward and into him with no warning at all, hot and hard and full, and Kurapika _moans_ , shocked and loud and unmistakable in the dark room. His nails sink into his own palms above his head. 

“You always sound like that when I touch you,” Chrollo mutters near his ear. His breath is hot. “Like you’ll die of it. Why is that?”

_No_ , echoes frantically inside Kurapika’s head, once he’s recovered from the complete, paralyzing horror of the violation. _No, no, no_ , _this wasn’t supposed to happen_. Not this. Not like this. 

He starts to thrash. He wasn’t supposed to really let Chrollo inside him, he just needed him _closer_ , he hadn’t thought—the blowjob was one thing, but this—

And then Chrollo starts to move, sliding almost all the way out and then back in to the hilt, deep, so deep, and Kurapika’s scream of panic gets choked, turns into something else. It’s like every nerve ending inside of him is lit up at once. Chrollo keeps thrusting, setting a slow, steady pace that makes Kurapika’s eyes fall shut and his skin hum. He can’t stop panting. 

_Think. You have to think._

He needs his hands free to grab the knife, but they’re still imprisoned in Chrollo’s grip as he— _god—_ fucks into Kurapika, hard and thorough, the tip of his cock touching what feels like every _part_ of him every time he snaps his hips forward.

_Get off me_ , he means to say, to make some excuse about feeling suddenly sick, anything to get out of this, to get Chrollo out of _him_. 

He’ll have to call off the plan, but it’s ruined anyway. Everything is ruined. Not only did he fail, but now Kurapika’s lost things he had never, ever imagined losing. His hands twist uselessly in the sheets above him and he even opens his mouth to say something. But nothing comes out. 

It feels so _good_.

As if reading his thoughts Chrollo changes the angles of his thrusts, making them somehow even deeper, and Kurapika tosses his head to the side and sinks his teeth into the fabric of his own shirtsleeve, trying to keep the desperate, needy sounds in. His breath keeps hitching in his throat and he can’t even it out.

Chrollo’s fingers grip his chin bruisingly tight and drag his face back up. He stares up, disoriented, into Chrollo’s fathomless black eyes. “Shy again?”

“Stop,” Kurapika finally says, chokes the words out, shaking his head. “Please, I can’t—stop.”

“Stop?” Chrollo says. He goes still. But that isn’t what Kurapika had meant, he’s still _inside him_ , and the next sound out of his mouth is very like a sob. “No,” he says, trying to move his hips to buck him off, but that only jostles Chrollo’s cock deeper inside him and he moans again.

“I don’t think you want me to,” Chrollo says. He rests a hand on Kurapika’s abdomen, over the place where Kurapika is positive he’d be able to see external proof of Chrollo’s cock inside him if he was willing to look. “I think this is all you’ve been thinking about for days, isn’t it?”

No. No, not this. Chrollo’s lifeless eyes staring at the ceiling, Kurapika with his blood on his hands, that’s what he’s been thinking about.

“No,” says Kurapika through gritted teeth. Chrollo thrusts in again, hits a particularly good spot, and a cry wrenches its way free of his throat. He lets his head tip back, biting down on his lip and clutching the sheets above his head so hard he wouldn’t be surprised if they tore. Anything to avoid making the humiliating, damning sounds spilling out of his mouth. 

Chrollo goes back up on his knees, almost withdrawing from Kurapika’s body entirely. He leaves only the head of his cock inside, thrusting shallowly and too slow. It’s not enough to give Kurapika what he needs, just enough to make him feel like he’s going to lose his mind. It makes a humiliating, sloppy noise. Kurapika is going to shake out of his skin.

Chrollo finally lets go of his wrists. They feel bruised. He spreads Kurapika’s legs further apart with both hands instead, holding them open so he can look down at where they’re joined. “You’re beautiful ruined,” he says, licking his lips. He says it matter-of-factly, soft and without inflection, the way he says everything. “I should keep you like this forever.”

“I’ll kill you first,” Kurapika says, breathless. The words sound too true; he’s being careless. 

Chrollo doesn’t seem to think anything of the threat. His eyes are blacker than the night outside. “I believe you,” he says. 

He slides back in, all the way to the hilt this time, and Kurapika digs his heels into the bed. He twists his head to one side, breath coming harsh, and squeezes his eyes shut. It feels too good, he's seeing stars behind his closed eyelids, and his mouth falls open. His hands are free at last, and he can’t seem to do anything but limply grab hold of the sheets on either side of him. 

He gives in. He recognizes the moment, and he lets it happen.

“Harder,” he gasps. And Chrollo does, so hard in fact that all Kurapika is aware of for the next little while is the pathetic, desperate sounds being punched out of him. He thinks his arms might go around Chrollo’s neck without his permission, just for something to hold onto.

“I left the door ajar when I came in,” Chrollo says in his ear at some point. “Anyone could hear you, the way you’re carrying on. Do you think they’ll come to see what the sound is?”

“No,” Kurapika says, but it comes out as a moan. He had seen Chrollo shut the door, hadn’t he? It’s still dark in the room, the door can’t be open. 

“You like that idea,” Chrollo whispers. “You can pretend you don’t, but I can feel how wet it makes you. I hope someone happens by and sees you, like this, crying like a slut.”

Kurapika isn’t expecting to come like that, but he does, without even a hand on him. It’s sudden and violent, and he thinks he might scream. 

He’s exhausted, shivering and loose-limbed from coming, when Chrollo pulls out. He barely even notices being lifted up while Chrollo rearranges them, lying down and pulling Kurapika back to straddle him. Then there’s a hard cock pushing back inside him and that, Kurapika notices. 

He moans again, in protest this time, trying to squirm up and away, but Chrollo’s hands are iron on his hips, pinning him there as he starts to thrust up and into him. Kurapika’s so oversensitive he can’t stop trembling, but he forces his eyes open, looking down at Chrollo with his hands braced on the other man’s chest to steady himself.

On instinct, on wild impulse, his hand slides up to Chrollo’s throat. He wraps his fingers around the white column of his neck. Chrollo’s eyes darken as he comes.

*

When Kurapika wakes up, he can tell he’s alone in the hotel room. 

He sits up slowly, wincing. He aches all over. He feels filthy and bruised; there’s sweat and come dried on his skin. The air conditioner has come on but the room still feels stifling, somehow. He wants to scream at the top of his lungs but his mouth feels stuck, sealed shut.

The wig he was wearing is on the floor, tangled horribly. He doesn’t know when it had come unpinned, or whether Chrollo had noticed. His scalp hurts where the pins had dragged against it. He hadn’t even realized until now.

Shame burns in his throat. He’s never felt so empty.

He stumbles out of bed and over to the bathroom on legs that don’t feel like his. He doesn’t bother to turn on the lights, just braces himself on the counter and stares at his own haunted, disheveled reflection in the half light. 

There must be something wrong with him. Not only had he failed, _again_ , but he’d enjoyed it. Again. He’d let Chrollo do unspeakable things to him, treat him like he was exactly the type of whore he’d tried to kill Chrollo for calling him. 

Tears prickle at his eyes. He can tell that his knees are about to give out and sinks to the ground, back resting against the cold porcelain of the tub and legs drawn up against his chest. He tries to take slow, even breaths.

It’s sort of working, and then he realizes the uncomfortable feeling between his legs is come leaking out of him. He lunges for the toilet just in time to be sick again.

*

He must just need sex, is the conclusion Kurapika comes to after he’s had the longest, most scorching shower of his life, thrown up once more, and brushed his teeth several times so vigorously his gums started to bleed. 

That’s the most rational explanation he can come to based on the evidence given. He had gone so long without intimacy, and now that he’s had it again, it’s making him behave irrationally.

It has nothing to do with Chrollo. He just needs to stop conflating the two. Chrollo can’t be the only person to have touched him in the past three years; once he gets the built up lust out of his system, he’ll be fine and he can focus only on the mission.

That’s it. That has to be it. 

He’s getting considerably more use out of his cheap leather pants than he had expected to when he had bought them from a flea market in Midtown, Kurapika considers as he wends his way through a new pop-up bar on the waterfront the following night. 

They do the trick this time, too. He only has to loiter at the sticky counter for five minutes, nursing a lukewarm and definitely illegal beer, before a redheaded man comes up behind him and rests a hand pointedly at the small of his back, asking if he wants another. 

Kurapika refuses, and he also refuses the next man, a slip of a boy with doe eyes and light hair. He’s four or five beers in by the time a tall, dark-haired man asks if he wants a dance. His blue eyes widen in surprise when Kurapika asks, bold and a little drunk, “Do you want to come to the bathroom with me?”

It’s all wrong, even though he’s aroused from the beginning, half-hard before they even get into the stall. He needs it so badly he’s aching, but it’s not right.

The man is handsome enough but he tastes like alcohol, and his hands are too rough in the wrong ways and his mouth too gentle in others, and after a few minutes of fumbling and grinding Kurapika pulls back in the narrow space of the stall and says harshly, “I can’t,” and then, trembling, “Get out. Please.”

He slams a fist against the closed stall door once the man leaves—to his credit, with no protest, only visible confusion and a shrug like he thinks Kurapika is insane.

_You let this happen_ , a voice whispers in the back of his mind. _No, you_ made _this happen._

He had brought Chrollo Lucilfer to the bathroom of a different club, to kill him. Instead he had let him suck him off until his legs collapsed under him. He had invited Chrollo Lucilfer to his hotel room, again, to kill him, and again, he had failed. He had failed because he hadn’t even tried.

He had opened his legs and let Chrollo fuck him. He had _asked_ him to.

The man who had killed everyone he’d ever loved, for money, and never thought about it twice.

He digs out his phone and dials a number with shaking fingers. He slides his eyes shut, leaning against the door of the stall while it rings. 

“Hello?” the smooth voice answers, and Kurapika inhales raggedly. Even the sound of his voice makes reluctant heat curl in Kurapika’s stomach. 

“Come get me,” he forces out, and he’s not sure whether it’s a demand or a plea. 

There’s a brief silence. Then, “What gave you the impression that I have time in my schedule to run all over Yorknew just to pick up a needy whore?”

He lingers lovingly on the last word, and Kurapika feels his cheeks flush.

“You bastard,” Kurapika says, squeezing his cock through his pants as the disdainful words make it throb painfully, despite all reason. “I—fucking _please.”_

“Were you trying to get off without me?” Chrollo asks, voice intoning mild interest. Kurapika wonders if he’s alone, or if he’s having this conversation surrounded by a dozen people, all of whom know that Kurapika is on the other end of the phone, asking Chrollo to come fuck him again. 

Kurapika doesn’t answer, but his breathing is shallow and rough to his own ears and he doesn’t think Chrollo needs to use Nen to decipher what that means. 

“Did you let someone else touch you?” Chrollo asks. His tone has changed almost imperceptibly. Kurapika closes his eyes, but he can’t stop listening. “You were desperate and begged some drunken boy to fuck you, didn’t you? Did you let him?

“Yes,” Kurapika says, defiant, and Chrollo murmurs, “Liar. If you had, you wouldn’t be calling me. You need it badly, don’t you? You’re almost in tears, I can hear it in your voice.”

“Come get me,” Kurapika says again, hoarsely, hating him and hating himself. 

“Come for me first,” Chrollo says. It sounds like he adjusts the way he’s sitting. “Right there, where anyone can hear you. I want to hear it.”

“I can’t,” Kurapika says, face burning. But like a man possessed, he’s already shifting the phone to rest between his ear and shoulder. The man he’d dragged in here had unzipped his pants for him; all he has to do is tug them low enough on his hips that he can take himself in hand. 

“That’s it,” Chrollo says, as if he can tell exactly what Kurapika is doing, calling to mind a different bathroom in a different club, and Kurapika hates that the words make arousal spike so suddenly his next exhale is uneven. “Where are you?”

Kurapika tries to remember if this short-lived club had even bothered with a name. “The waterfront,” he says. He strokes himself rough and fast, wanting to get this humiliating part of the ordeal over with quickly. “Some bar. I don’t know.”

“Typical,” Chrollo says, sounding as dismissive as if he hadn’t been the one to suck Kurapika off on the filthy floor of a restroom. “Are you touching yourself now?”

“Yes,” Kurapika gasps. He’s too aware of the position he’s in, and the proximity of those outside the stall. He’s sure it must be obvious what he’s doing, just like Chrollo wanted. His breathing is growing rougher, and he has to hope the running sink is covering the slick sounds as he jacks himself off with the precum spilling over his fingers. 

“That didn’t take much,” Chrollo observes quietly, like he knows, like he’s _there,_ and Kurapika sinks his teeth into his bottom lip. The hot shame he feels at the statement—at the fact that it’s true—only makes him more aroused. He strokes himself faster. 

He’s never going to get these wires uncrossed. He’ll have to rip them out of him and start over. 

He’s already so close, and then the smooth voice on the other end of the phone murmurs, “I wish I could see you. What a mess you must look like,” and he chokes and trembles and comes all over his hand and the back of the door in hot spurts. 

“There,” he says when he’s gotten his breath back. His chest aches. It wasn’t enough. Somehow, it still wasn’t what he needed. He forces out, “ _Now_ will you come here?”

“I’m in a car outside,” Chrollo says, mild. “As I have been for some time.” 

He hangs up on Kurapika’s outraged snarl.

Kurapika’s legs are still trembling when he exits the club, and he feels a little lightheaded. It takes him a minute to pick the black car idling by the sidewalk out of the crowd out on the street. He makes his way over to it unsteadily.

For a horrible moment as he approaches, he wonders if Chrollo isn’t alone in the car, paranoia seizing hold of him, but then the back door swings open and Kurapika can see inside. Just him, no one else.

He ducks in and shuts the door behind him. The windows are tinted so black no one could possibly see in. Chrollo is dressed in the suit he reserves for white-collar crime. That’s about all Kurapika takes in before he’s being manhandled onto Chrollo’s lap.

He’s oversensitive, and when Chrollo slides a hand down the front of his pants he can feel that tears are forming at the corner of his eyes, ducks his head so Chrollo won’t see. Somehow, despite just coming, he already feels desperate again. 

He fumbles with the zipper of Chrollo’s trousers, forcing them undone while Chrollo drags the leather pants back down to his thighs and reaches to probe fingers at Kurapika’s entrance. He bites his lip and squirms; he’s still sore from the night before, and Chrollo’s not using anything to ease his way. “Stop,” he hisses, alarmed, gripping Chrollo’s wrist. 

But then the fingers are back, and slick, and pushing _in_ , and Kurapika realizes Chrollo must carry lube _on his person._ He’s neither overly gentle nor thorough about preparing Kurapika before helping him kneel up on his lap, which is just fine. Then he’s pulling him back down by the hips and pushing himself hard and thick up into him, rocking them both forward on the leather seats. Kurapika grabs hold of his shoulders on instinct to stay balanced, fingers digging into the formal fabric.

And this is it, exactly what Kurapika wanted. This, being filled up and held down with iron-strong hands, unable to move except to shudder over and over again as Chrollo fucks up into him at a merciless, detached pace. He came so recently, but he still feels his cock filling again, bouncing against his stomach as he lifts himself up and down, thighs trembling with the effort.

It could be minutes later or hours that he comes with a soft cry against Chrollo’s shoulder. Chrollo doesn’t stop; he seems in no hurry to reach his own finish, but he’s obviously enjoying the pained sounds Kurapika’s making now, raw and overstimulated. Kurapika feels like he’s going to lose his mind. He claws at Chrollo’s back to no avail as he’s used, deep and relentless. Finally, after what feels like eons Chrollo slows, and then stops. Kurapika lets out a shuddering exhale. It sounds more like a whimper than he’d like.

“Oh, you needed that,” Chrollo sighs in his ear. He strokes a strand of the wig back. “Didn’t you, Kurapika?”

Ice solidifies in Kurapika’s veins. He goes rigid. 

_No. It can’t be._

His impulse is to spring away, but Chrollo hasn’t pulled out yet and he’s got one palm pressed firm to Kurapika’s back, keeping him pinned against his chest. Kurapika’s head is still spinning from orgasm. He doesn’t have his full strength back yet.

It’s not possible. If Chrollo knew, surely he would never have come here alone. He would have backup, an army. Kurapika would already be dead. 

But he knew Kurapika’s name.

He forces out, “How—”

“How long have I known?” Chrollo sounds disinterested. He thrusts up again with no warning, and Kurapika tries not to cry out, too sensitive, as the still-hard cock jostles inside him. “From the beginning, of course. As soon as I saw you at the bar. Did you really think I wouldn’t recognize you?” 

He strokes his hair again, and Kurapika twists away in revulsion, heart pounding. But he can’t turn away from the words that follow: “You have a rare beauty, and I do not forget those.”

Kurapika grits his teeth. He can’t reconcile this, the position he’s in. The idea that the whole time, he was even less in control than he’d thought. That he’d been the one who was being used, the one caught in a web of his own making. “You knew…” he has to force the words out. “You knew when we—”

“In the club,” Chrollo says. “In the hotel. When I was inside you the first time. Obviously I knew.” He tips his head to one side, black eyes gleaming in the low light. “But I think what’s far more interesting, personally, is that _you_ knew.”

Kurapika is going to throw up again, he knows he is. If Chrollo would just stop _moving_ —it _hurts_ now, it’s too much, and yet every jolt of his hips is still sending pleasure-pain sparks up Kurapika’s spine as he grinds up into him, refusing to stop. 

He feels at once ice cold and overwarm. “Why wouldn’t you just kill me,” he says through his teeth.

“Oh, I planned to,” Chrollo says. “Your plan was very obvious, so I went into that bathroom ready to fight. I gave you the opportunity. And then, you didn’t take it. So I thought, I wonder how far he’ll go. Of course, I couldn’t have dreamed _how_ far.”

His hips are pressed directly against Kurapika’s ass now, no space at all between them. He doesn’t stop rocking up into him, relentless, as if he could possibly get any deeper. The worst part is that it’s still good. It’s good, and it’s too much, and it’s horrible.

“You could have forced me,” Kurapika spits out. He can’t stop shivering from overstimulation, and balls his hand into a fist against Chrollo’s shoulder, letting the nails bite into his palm. Even forming words is difficult. “If you wanted me.”

“It was tempting,” Chrollo says as neutrally as if they’re discussing the weather. “The thought of you screaming, and fighting me. I liked it. I wanted it a great deal, actually.” He runs a hand down Kurapika’s back, a mockery of gentleness, and Kurapika arches away from it, furious.

“You would’ve wanted that too, wouldn’t you?” Chrollo murmurs in his ear. “In the back of your mind? How satisfying it would’ve been for you, for you to be able to blame me for that as well.”

Kurapika really tries to get away this time, even draws upon his Nen, but lead settles into his gut when he reaches for the chains and finds: nothing. Emptiness. They aren’t there. It’s something he’s never felt before. Their absence takes the wind out of him, even as he’s already struggling to breathe.

“There are nearly thirty different blocking abilities in my book,” Chrollo says casually. “This one is my favorite. You won’t be able to use your Nen while within a hundred feet of me, I’m afraid.” He thrusts up again, sounding mildly curious. “How close do you think we are right now?”

Kurapika knows he should be afraid, but he’s not able to focus on that. He’s too angry that he’s even in this situation. That he’s _let_ himself get into this situation. _Stupid. So, so stupid._

“Back to your question,” Chrollo says. “I might have just taken you, but I think we both know that wouldn’t break you. I could have forced you a hundred different ways, and I don’t imagine you would glare at me with one inch less resolve.” He smiles. “But to have you _offer_ yourself to me? To hear you whimper and cry underneath me and know how that would rip you apart? Knowing what your friends, and your poor dead family would think of you? Oh, that was intoxicating. I couldn’t turn that down.”

Kurapika knows better than anyone that he’s dealing with a monster wearing the mask of a man. He’s still unable to take in air for a moment, stunned by the careless cruelty of the admission.

“I think, deep down, you knew I knew,” Chrollo says, soft and terrible. The words crawl long-legged along Kurapika’s skin, bite their way beneath. “I think as long as you didn’t, you could pretend that it was just a role you were playing. Because you _wanted_ to play it.”

“You don’t know anything about me,” Kurapika snarls.

“May I see your eyes?” Chrollo asks, like he’d once asked if he could kiss him. Kurapika recoils from that like a punch. He balls his hands into fists and spits, “Never.”

“If you show me, I’ll stop,” Chrollo says, and thrusts up again to make clear what he means. Kurapika breathes in through his nose to stop a pained gasp. “I’ll let you up. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

Kurapika heaves a breath and grinds out, “Let go, then.”

To his surprise, Chrollo does, and Kurapika wrenches his way off his lap so fast and carelessly that the flared head of Chrollo’s cock catches at his rim for an agonizing moment that makes his eyes all but roll back in his head. Then he’s free, and empty, and feeling dirtier than he’s ever felt as he scrambles to the opposite side of the backseat, doing up his pants with shaking fingers.

Chrollo only tucks himself away in an unhurried sort of way, eyes unwavering from Kurapika’s face. Kurapika is practiced at taking the contacts out after so many months; he pinches at the corners and drops them onto the floor of the backseat without checking where they fall. It’s not like he’s going to need them again, now.

“Ah,” Chrollo breathes, when Kurapika looks back up at him, and smiles. “My favorite color.”

Kurapika doesn’t need a mirror to know his eyes are blazing crimson. He’s sure they have been for some time. 

“My first inclination was to cut them out when you were sleeping,” Chrollo says in the same soft, neutral voice. He tips his head to one side. “But do you know, I think I might enjoy them more where they are.”

“If you don’t kill me now, I’ll kill you later,” Kurapika says, rigid and stony. “Consider this your only warning.”

“I’m not going to kill you now,” Chrollo says. He leans back against the seat, still staring unnervingly, and offers nothing else. 

“ _Why_?” Kurapika demands, voice ragged with fury.

Now Chrollo smiles for real, and Kurapika realizes he’s never seen it before, because he would remember. It’s _horrible_. “Making you live with it just seems so much better,” he says, and then clears his throat. “Now are you going to get out of my car, or were you hoping for one more for the road?”

“You’ll regret this,” Kurapika tells him. He means it with everything in him.

“Maybe,” Chrollo says with a shrug. As Kurapika exits the car into the dark, emptying sidewalk, dazed and filthy, he hears from behind him, “But not, I think, like you will.”


End file.
